Porters Neck Country Club members know they have it all — a memorable, Tom Fazio-designed golf course, a beautiful clubhouse, countless amenities including year-round family activities and enduring fellowship among the club’s vibrant membership. 

And with Porters Neck’s renovation and enhancement of its golf practice facility, long-time member Paul Chase says he feels an even greater sense of pride in his club.

“Now, I feel like our practice facilities elevate the level of the club, with how the facilities look and how they’re perceived by not only our membership but outside folks here in Wilmington,” says Chase. “They come to the club and they’re very impressed with how everything looks now, the facilities.”

The impressive renovations include an overhaul of the short-game area and the addition of a four-hole short course, which opened to members in August 2021.

“Not that you're showing off, but it’s really nice to hear their feedback, to hear positive feedback about what we did and how it turned out,” Chase says. “It's been a really nice improvement to the club over the last year or so.”

Along with the revamped short-game practice area at Porters Neck, McConnell Golf also rebuilt and lowered the entire driving range tee to offer improved visibility from the rear of the tee, sloping it toward the front for better drainage. The short-game area features for game improvement include:

• A 360° area, with a four-hole short course
• A new, 8,500 square foot putting green
• Laser Link rangefinders and target greens on the range with Zoysia definition
• Bunkers around target greens, with solid surface for ball retrieval
• Five new, greenside practice bunkers with concrete shells and new sand around the new short course

“The opportunities that the new area has opened up for instruction has been tremendous,” says Robert Loper, Porters Neck head golf professional.

Chase adds that the new area is much more spacious, too. “There’s a number of chipping greens to play too, there’s a new putting green, so there’s plenty of area for members on the driving range.”

Chase says PNCC’s avid golfing membership has given extremely positive feedback on the new short-game facility. “I just think that the ability to practice now versus how it was previously is a night and day difference,” he says. “I’d say improvement of everyone’s short-game, as long as they go out and use it, is going to be possible.”

Porters Neck member John Pisarek says he’s seen first-hand how the short-game facility can elevate a golfer’s skills. “I played with a higher handicap golfer yesterday who made a difficult chip shot look easy,” says Pisarek, who has been a club member with his wife, Laura, since 2008. “Unsolicited, he said ‘thank the new McConnell short-game ractice area for the ability to hit that shot.’”

Pisarek, a 5-handicap, said the short-game area offers golfers the opportunity to practice every shot they will face on the golf course.

“The short course offers the opportunity to practice chipping and sand shots from multiple elevations, different bunker depths and simulates shots needed not only at PNCC, but any other course that you would play,” he says. He adds that any golfer – from beginner to pro – can improve their game by using the short-game facility.

Chase says his wife, Deehje, and their 7-year-old daughter, Miller, are enjoying the practice area even though they are not yet avid golfers. “We’re up there quite a bit. We like to go out and utilize the range and the short-game area and the practice green to get together.”

“The general takeaway is it’s been an awesome improvement at the club,” Chase says. “Everyone’s really excited about how it turned out.”
 

Read More

Quite often I find myself telling people, “I spend more time with my dog than I do my family.” I do not say it out of pride or in an attempt to slight my family, it’s just a statement of fact. I love my wife and kids. The time I spend with them is precious, but it’s tough to compete with the availability of Pepper. Pepper is my 7-year-old Brittany, and she comes to work with me at Brook Valley Country Club every day. She’s ready to roll first thing in the morning, she’s with me all day, and she sleeps on my bed at night. Pepper and I have a special relationship. However, we are not alone in the world of McConnell Golf as “working dogs” are more prevalent in our organization than you might realize.

As you may know, where there are geese on a golf course — there are people wishing they were gone. They are a nuisance to golfers and golf course maintenance personnel alike. Geese feed on insects and other invertebrates and cause a fair amount of destruction to turf in the process. In addition to the damage they cause from feeding, they tend to leave behind unwanted and messy “fertilizer.” Since they are a federally protected species, they are not easy to remove or relocate. What is legal and acceptable, without special permits, is what officials refer to as harassment. It’s exactly what it sounds like, keep them agitated and harassed until they decide to move on to another location. To accomplish this, some courses use green lasers, others use noise makers, or cutouts of coyotes and alligators. All these tactics are helpful, but nothing will harass a goose like a well-trained dog.

I cannot tell you about goose dogs without sharing how I started in the goose chasing business. My experience with dogs predates Pepper and McConnell Golf as my uncles were avid upland bird hunters, who loved quail hunting. Around the holidays every year, I would get the chance to go out in the field with them and be a part of the hunt. I loved to watch their Brittany Spaniels work a field.

The dogs would run hard at first in excitement, then they would settle down to a trot and get to work. They seemed to methodically divide the field up in sections where they knew quail had been and would keep checking back with us to make sure we were close. This was serious work for the dogs, and you could tell it was what they lived for as they loved the thrill of the hunt. Eventually, when they would wind a bird and lock up, every muscle in their bodies seemed to clinch as they went completely rigid, and their noses were pointing right where we could find the birds. They would stand like a statue until the birds were flushed. If you’ve never seen a pointing breed work, I assure you it is an impressive sight to see. A dance choreographer could not create more beautiful movements.

I will never forget those hunts with my uncles. One thing I did not realize at the time was how much I was learning to work with dogs. I was learning how a well-trained dog will work for you, how an untrained dog can be a liability, and how to trust a great dog’s nose and intuition. My uncles taught me how to treat a dog with respect and showed me a working dog can be a member of the family and still do their job. They also showed me a good dog needs a little discipline, a lot of consistency, and even more encouragement. I know all this now but back then, all I wanted was my very own Brittany.

It took some time for my working dog training role to take place. After getting a college education, a new bride, a cross country move, and a career change, I finally got my very own Brittany named Katie. From the time my wife and I picked her up as a puppy, not a moment was wasted. We did not have children yet, so Katie had our attention. For the first two years of her life, she and I spent 10 hours a week training. We went everywhere together and by the time she was 3 years old, Katie knew more than a dozen commands, and was becoming a force to be reckoned with in the bird field.

Katie would stay on point until I released her and would retrieve to hand, heel, wait for approval, and then go right back to hunting. The more we challenged her with new tasks, the more she delivered. She learned quickly how to retrieve from land or water, and she could track game, sit calmly in a blind and even open doors in our home.

When we got Katie, I was an assistant superintendent. Five years later, I was given the opportunity to step into a superintendent role. The course that hired me had a terrible goose problem, and guess who had a chance to learn a new skill? We added a few commands to Katie’s repertoire, and just like that, we had a goose dog! It took me and Katie nearly two years of harassing those geese every day, and then they were gone. They rarely came back, and if they did, Katie was on the job immediately.

Katie and I worked for four different golf courses throughout her life. During the winter months, we got paid to guide quail hunts at local hunting preserves. For two summers, a municipality hired us to chase geese out of a city park. She and I made a great team and when she was in her prime, we had so much fun. We learned a lot together on and off the course. However, sadly, her working days were over by the time she was almost 12. You could tell she was really slowing down, and that’s when she passed the torch to our new puppy, Pepper. 

Other than making an appearance at training days with Pepper, Katie lived the last four years of her life in comfort. She spent most of her days holding down her bed in my office, or the couch at home. Before she left us in the spring of 2020, she was two weeks away from her 16th birthday. There are a lot of people who miss her, nobody more than me, but her spirit lives on. Some people even mistake Pepper for her. While they are the same breed and have similar markings, Pepper is not nearly as talented. However, to be fair, I have not put as much work into her training. She does mind her manners, knows a few commands, and chases geese for Brook Valley. Her specialty is snuggling with my wife and kids, and she loves the work!

McConnell Golf’s canine program started at Raleigh Country Club in 2004 with a border collie named Quinn. We currently have three trained border collies that were purchased for geese chasing, and they are based at Porters Neck Country Club, Providence Country Club and The Country Club at Wakefield Plantation. In addition to Brook Valley, Country Club of Asheville has a family dog that is trained to help chase geese. “Not only are these dogs a great help with the geese, they help with morale of the superintendent and maintenance crews,” says Michael Shoun, vice president of agronomy at McConnell Golf. “What other job can you bring your best friend to work with you every day?” 

Several of the McConnell Golf dogs came from a similar background to Pepper, and the ones I have met are amazing. The dogs all have a story, like Providence’s superintendent, Mark Scott. Scott’s 3-year-old Border Collie Sis herds geese away from the course. “One of our agronomy team’s greatest assets is Sis,” says Scott. “She loves to run and is always ready to work when she needs to. The geese don’t stand a chance because of how quick she is on the course. Sis really is a great dog, and the rest of the team likes having her around as well.”

Sis, like Chris Parham’s Border Collie Euro, was purchased from a company called Flyaway Geese out of Stanfield, North Carolina. Flyaway Geese breeds border collies to ethically and skillfully assist with geese removal nationwide. Euro’s first stop at a McConnell Golf course was Providence. “When I moved to Porters Neck, I asked if Euro could transfer as well,” says Parham. “He got the ‘OK’ to become a beach dog here in Wilmington. He loves chasing geese! When he’s not running through the sprinklers on the golf course, you can find him hanging out in my office or on our utility cart. He also loves to ride on the boat with my wife Lynn and I.”

One might say McConnell Golf has geese covered from the mountains to the coast as Will Laine, the assistant golf course superintendent at Asheville also has a canine assistant. Charlie, Laine’s 4-year-old Goldendoodle, has been at CCA for about a year. During the day, he enjoys greeting members on the course, and some of them even put treats in their golf bags for him or buy a snack for him at the turn. “He loves chasing geese off the No. 4 fairway, sticking his face in front of irrigation sprinklers, cooling off in the creek on No. 10 and playing in the snow,” says Laine. “Charlie can also locate moles underground and pull them out before they damage turf. Having him run the golf course with me every day is not only great for the course, but great for his health and the morale of our maintenance staff.”

Dogs have a way of bringing joy and comfort to most everyone around them. In the busy, hectic, and sometimes stressful life of a golf course superintendent, a dog can be a great companion. While they may not always have a busy season on the course, sometimes their job is to put a smile on someone’s face for a moment. For as long as I am a superintendent, whether there are geese to chase or not, I will always have a dog at my course. Mark Twain could not have said it better, “If there are no dogs in heaven, when I die, I want to go where they went.”

Read More

Seed for Debbie Fitzgerald’s career was planted early. “Oh, I’ve been growing things since I was knee-high to a bullfrog,” says Fitzgerald, who was raised on a tobacco farm in the tiny town of Bailey, North Carolina. “Tobacco was our cash crop, but we also grew corn, cotton, soybeans, plus a huge family garden.”

The chores were hard, but the childhood was happy, she says, “and here I am now, still growing things.”

“Here” is Raleigh Country Club, where Fitzgerald has worked as a horticulturist for the past 25 years. The line from cash crops on the farm to colorful creations on the golf course wasn’t straight, but it ultimately planted her in a place she adores.

“I took a lot of different paths,” the 69-year-old says. “My greatest interest is art. I love color — I love working with
color and texture and shapes — and that is what drew me into the plant world, which is different than farm life,
but the same principles apply.”

One twist in the road included a couple of gigs as a backup singer in a rock ’n’ roll band. “We weren’t famous,” says Fitzgerald with a laugh. “But oh my, we had a lot of fun!”

Today, she still sings while working a job she describes as a true passion. Fitzgerald designs, installs and maintains the decorative beds on the golf courses and around the clubhouses at several McConnell Golf properties. Her home base is Raleigh Country Club, and she spends a couple of days per week at The Country Club at Wakefield Plantation. She does seasonal design work at Brook Valley Country Club and Treyburn Country Club as well as the family residence of John McConnell, President/CEO of McConnell Golf.

“We have our hands full all the time. We are a busy crowd,” she says, crediting the beautiful results to a crew she calls “family” and expressing delight at the opportunity to be endlessly creative. “With plants, there are so many possibilities and I’m always excited about trying new things, mixing it up, keeping it fresh.”

Fitzgerald pours her artist’s heart into horticultural design. “I find it so gratifying to work with really pretty plant material. My job is providing visual diversity and designing a beautiful environment for members to enjoy.” Off the job, Fitzgerald spends a lot of her free time … growing things. “My garden is beautiful — I cannot have enough plants at my house,” she says. “I make sure to surround myself with beauty.”

When she isn’t playing in the dirt, her other hobbies include painting and drawing. Despite a quarter-century working on golf courses, she doesn’t play. “I can hit the ball hard — but I can’t aim it,” the left-handed horticulturist confesses.

Fitzgerald and her husband Patrick have one son and a soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Jack and Maegan, as well as an 8-year-old collie-lab mix named Murphy. Reflecting on her silver anniversary with McConnell Golf, Fitzgerald says she does plan to retire — eventually — but for now, “I still wake up excited to go to work … and working outside, in the fresh air and sunshine, keeps me young.”

When the day does come, though, her vision of the ideal retirement includes volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to build decks and porches and, of course, install beautiful landscaping. “It’s so important that people have a lovely, peaceful place to live,” she says.

Read More

Bentgrass or Bermuda?

Several McConnell courses have converted from bentgrass to dwarf Bermuda grass greens. If grown and maintained in the right circumstances, dwarf Bermuda greens offer a better-quality putting surface and consistent greens speed for more days with less inputs, such as fertilizers, growth regulators, and water. Factors to consider when making the switch include course location, history of the current grass, weather, number of quality play days, play trends, water quality, amount of sun and shade, and the severity of the greens’ surface. So why don’t we convert all of our greens to Bermuda grass?

Most of our courses experience hot summers and cold winters, for which there is no perfect grass. Many courses across the Carolinas that convert to Bermuda grass suffer from winter kill caused by extreme cold. In the Carolinas, it’s too hot in the summer for successful bentgrass, and in the winter, we have to cover the Bermuda grass to protect it from the cold and the threat of winter kill. We continue to keep up with the current research on newer cultivars of more heat-tolerant bentgrass and more cold-tolerant dwarf Bermuda grass.

Read More